Physiological, kinematic, and electromyographic responses to kinesiology-type patella tape in elite cyclists

Kinesiology-type tape (KTT) has become popular in sports for injury prevention, rehabilitation, and performance enhancement. Many cyclists use patella KTT; however, its benefits remain unclear, especially in uninjured elite cyclists. We used an integrated approach to investigate acute physiological, kinematic, and electromyographic responses to patella KTT in twelve national-level male cyclists. Cyclists completed four, 4-minute submaximal efforts on an ergometer at 100 and 200 W with and without patella KTT. Economy, energy cost, oxygen cost, heart rate, efficiency, 3D kinematics, and lower-body electromyography signals were collected over the last minute of each effort. Comfort levels and perceived change in knee stability and performance with KTT were recorded. The effects of KTT were either unclear, non-significant, or clearly trivial on all collected physiological and kinematic measures. KTT significantly, clearly, and meaningfully enhanced vastus medialis peak, mean, and integrated electromyographic signals, and vastus medialis-to-lateralis activation. Electromyographic measures from biceps femoris and biceps-to-rectus femoris activation ratio decreased in either a significant or clinically meaningful manner. Despite most cyclists perceiving KTT as comfortable, increasing stability, and improving performance, the intervention exerted no considerable effects on all physiological and kinematic measures. KTT did alter neuromuscular recruitment, which has potential implications for injury prevention

Dynamic manipulation of mechanical resonators in the high amplitude regime through optical backaction

Cavity optomechanics enables active manipulation of mechanical resonators through backaction cooling and amplification. This ability to control mechanical motion with retarded optical forces has recently spurred a race towards realizing a mechanical resonator in its quantum ground state. Here, instead of quenching optomechanical motion, we demonstrate high amplitude operation of nanomechanical resonators by utilizing a highly efficient phonon generation process. In this regime, the nanomechanical resonators gain sufficient energy from the optical field to overcome the large energy barrier of a double well potential, leading to nanomechanical slow-down and zero frequency singularity, as predicted by early theories . Besides fundamental studies and interests in parametric amplification of small forces, optomechanical backaction is also projected to open new windows for studying discrete mechanical states, and to foster applications. Here we realize a non-volatile mechanical memory element, in which bits are written and reset via optomechanical backaction by controlling the mechanical damping across the barrier. Our study casts a new perspective on the energy dynamics in coupled mechanical resonator - cavity systems and enables novel functional devices that utilize the principles of cavity optomechanics.Comment: 22 pages, 5 figure

Knowledge, attitudes and other factors associated with assessment of tobacco smoking among pregnant Aboriginal women by health care providers: a cross-sectional survey

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>As with many Indigenous peoples, smoking rates among Aboriginal Australians are considerably higher than those of the non-Indigenous population. Approximately 50% of Indigenous women smoke during pregnancy, a time when women are more motivated to quit. Antenatal care providers are potentially important change agents for reducing the harms associated with smoking, yet little is known about their knowledge, attitudes or skills, or the factors associated with providing smoking cessation advice.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>This paper aimed to explore the knowledge and attitudes of health care providers caring for pregnant Australian Aboriginal women with regard to smoking risks and cessation; and to identify factors associated with self-reported assessment of smoking. A cross-sectional survey was undertaken with 127 staff providing antenatal care to Aboriginal women from two jurisdictions: the Northern Territory and New South Wales, Australia. Measures included respondents' estimate of the prevalence of smoking among pregnant women; optimal and actual assessment of smoking status; knowledge of risks associated with antenatal smoking; knowledge of smoking cessation; attitudes to providing cessation advice to pregnant women; and perceived barriers and motivators for cessation for pregnant women.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The median provider estimate of the smoking prevalence was 69% (95%CI: 60,70). The majority of respondents considered assessment of smoking status to be integral to antenatal care and a professional responsibility. Most (79%) indicated that they assess smoking status in 100% of clients. Knowledge of risks was generally good, but knowledge of cessation was poor. Factors independently associated with assessing smoking status among all women were: employer service type (<it>p </it>= 0.025); cessation knowledge score (<it>p </it>= 0.011); and disagreeing with the statement that giving advice is not worth it given the low level of success (<it>p </it>= 0.011).</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Addressing knowledge of smoking risks and cessation counselling is a priority and should improve both confidence and ability, and increase the frequency and effectiveness of counselling. The health system must provide supports to providers through appropriate policy and resourcing, to enable them to address this issue.</p

Operation and performance of the ATLAS Tile Calorimeter in Run 1

The Tile Calorimeter is the hadron calorimeter covering the central region of the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider. Approximately 10,000 photomultipliers collect light from scintillating tiles acting as the active material sandwiched between slabs of steel absorber. This paper gives an overview of the calorimeter’s performance during the years 2008–2012 using cosmic-ray muon events and proton–proton collision data at centre-of-mass energies of 7 and 8TeV with a total integrated luminosity of nearly 30 fb−1. The signal reconstruction methods, calibration systems as well as the detector operation status are presented. The energy and time calibration methods performed excellently, resulting in good stability of the calorimeter response under varying conditions during the LHC Run 1. Finally, the Tile Calorimeter response to isolated muons and hadrons as well as to jets from proton–proton collisions is presented. The results demonstrate excellent performance in accord with specifications mentioned in the Technical Design Report